diary

I was inspired a few months ago by Megan’s blog posts that included diary entries from 1999 and when The Phantom Menace premiered. It reminded me of when my own obsession began with Star Wars – also in 1999 and due to TPM.

I was 12 years old and though I had seen Star Wars previously, it had never spoken to me in quite the way it did with TPM. I’ve been through this before, so I won’t bore anyone with even more details.

When reading Megan’s posts, I couldn’t go back and dig out my diary because they were packed away for the move. I kind of forgot about doing a post on my past diary entries.

Then I was chatting with Imperial Talker two days ago and mentioned I had once written a Star Wars Anthem to the tune of our (US) national anthem. He encouraged me to dig it out and find it.

Since my diaries have been unpacked, I have finally received the motivation needed to sift through all the entries (I used to write A LOT when I was young!) and find some interesting Star Wars related ones to share.

I discovered that:

I was seriously in love with Luke Skywalker,

I loved to record dreams – and apparently I had a lot related to Star Wars,

I could not spell Darth Vader correctly (I wrote it Vadar…novice mistake!),

I did, indeed, make a song to our national anthem but it’s nowhere near as good as I remember it being in my head.

I know I was in love with Luke Skywalker but I don’t think I remember it the way I felt it in 1999. I always say that Luke Skywalker was one of

Yup, sums me up at age 12.

my “first crushes” but I’m trying to figure out what attracted me to him at a young age. I honestly don’t think it was inappropriate, but more like – I thought he was handsome, he could use magic (the Force), and he was down-to-the-soul good. He resisted evil and did what he thought was right. At that point in my life, I needed that a lot more than the bad boy Solo, whom I would end up understanding the appeal of when I got older. I didn’t include any photos of those diary entries because a) they’re weird, and b) they mostly consist of me saying “I love Luke Skywalker!!!!!!!!”

As for the dreams – funnily, I was talking about this with my sister the other day. So many people can’t remember their dreams. But I had gone on an interpretive dream kick when I was younger (now I know exactly how young! 12 and in 1999!) and made an effort to record all my dreams and try to decipher the meanings of them. Due to this obsessive habit that I had for months, I still remember almost all my dreams to this day. I could tell you exactly what I dreamed last night. It’s such a weird experiment I did that shows that when you do something persistently when you’re younger – it stays with you as you get older.

So without much further ado, here are a few good ones from 1999.

Dream Diary Entry #1 (I cut this one off in the middle because it had irrelevant stuff about school friends):

July 10, 1999

What I loved about reading this specific entry was that it brought back the feeling of the podracer to me. I don’t remember any other part of the dream – but I remember the feeling of driving in a podracer at age 30. And I remember waking up and wanting to dream it all over again. It was so real. Even 21 years later, I remember that podracing dream.

Oh and I love how I had to take a little dig at Jake Lloyd. Like “not even Jake Lloyd felt how I felt”…haha.

Dream Diary Entry #2:

September 6, 1999

Apparently I had to explain my actions on why Luke was holding my hand (we were married). Haha, I must have thought that was inappropriate to do otherwise!

In case anyone was wondering, Coober Pedy is an opal mining town in Australia. I had visited it the summer before (1998) and had fallen in love with the underground houses they had in the area. I thought it was so cool…and apparently my subconscious was still obsessed with it a year later.

Dream Diary Entry #3:

September 7, 1999

Not as interesting, but hey, Leia made an appearance! Sounds like she got shafted quite often.

Diary Entry #4, The Important Things in Life:

September 11, 1999

Is it all true? I still wonder. Did this all happen? Is Star Wars real? BURNING QUESTIONS I STILL ASK MYSELF TODAY.

But otherwise, this is clearly a momentous event. It sounds like I had been looking for his address for a while. For all the new people following my blog, I did end up writing to George Lucas and questioned some direction of his on TPM and hoping he would resolve the flow between the OT and the PT because thus far, there was not a lot of similarity. (Also, I used to name my diaries. This one was named Ariana Skywalker and I liked to write to the diary like it was a friend)

I never received a response from him, BUT his staff wrote back with a copy of Star Wars Insider and I’ve subscribed to the magazine for almost 20 years (other than the brief break in college when I had no money).

Diary Entry #5, the Star Wars Anthem:

September 8, 1999

I’ve held this song in my head as, like, the pinnacle of greatness. It’s kind of disappointing to look back and see, oh wait, it’s really not that good. Ah well. Looks like I had a lot of notes attached to one syllable. Guess I’ll never be a songwriter any time soon.

There you have it – a glimpse into my life when I became obsessed with Star Wars. I love that I was blogging about Star Wars before I knew what blogging was. What’s somewhat amusing about all this is that I thought I would have more entries related to TPM. But it seems like most focus is on the OT, with the exception of the podracer dream.

Are there any distinct childhood memories about Star Wars that you remember?